Tony's initial estimate of a few days was grossly incorrect, mainly because he hadn't factored in the Darcy Effect.
That being said, now Bucky and Darcy were lying next to each other in lab areas on clean hospital bed, both their vitals stable, but neither of them moving, Tony was sitting at the foot of the bed reviewing footage from the day's events, Clint was parched on the chair next to Darcy's hand. Steve was on Bucky's far side, arms crossed, staring at his friend's new arm, the half curl of his metal fist laying limp on the blankets.
Darcy's lids were flickering, pale purple in color, but they had been since she dropped.
Tony jolted, got up to his feet, and bought the monitor to Clint, pointing at the HD clarity.
"What do you see?" he demanded. "What are they saying?"
Clint gave it a once over.
He hadn't been present when the drama had happened - only Pepper thinking to notify him several minutes after Darcy initially wouldn't wake up. Steve had been there for the operation; it went without saying that there were apprehensions about getting Bucky on the table, his anesthesia and numbing agent made out of some potent chemicals Bruce had once tried on the Hulk.
He'd lain down, Darcy able to be in the room when he went under, and he looked nervous. He was utterly still, a deadness to his face that made Clint very uncomfortable. It was like he expected it to hurt, and he knew all about that.
Darcy, though, she stayed with him the entire time, holding his hand and petting his human arm, keeping as much of his attention as she could while he was swabbed and injected and letting the drugs wash through him. Bucky mouthed something at her - the computer didn't pick up the noise, but Clint could see it anyway.
"He's saying that he can't wait to feel her hands on the new arm." Clint said with a huff. "And she's... asking him if that's all he can't wait to feel with that arm."
Tony rolled his eyes, sighed hard.
"They're trouble." Captain America, still by Bucky's bedside, muttered. "And when they wake up, they're gonna be even more trouble."
Tony made a short noise of disapproval, and what might've amounted to protective parental noises, but Clint couldn't hear him, too focused on the screen, taking it from the genius' hands when he made to go away.
"What?" he bent over the archer's shoulder to see. "What is it?"
Clint clicked the icon and dragged it back, watching the scene again.
"Oh, shit." he muttered. "She's got it bad."
"What? Why?" Tony dragged the icon back and watched the scene again - watched Darcy make sure no one but Bucky was looking when she swooped down to pick up her dropped glasses. The movement was rewarded with a sleepy grin, half shut eyes, Bucky's lips moving faintly, lethargic, as the drugs took hold.
"What happened?" Steve asked them. He was ignored.
"What did he say?" Tony said. Clint had to replay the scene twice more, frowning harder and harder as he went. "I thought you were good at this?"
"Look at how much his mouth is actively moving, there." the sniper said, giving Tony a petulant look. "And tell me you could have some kind of machine that'd do better than my eyes."
"What happened, why did she drop her glasses?"
"Chrissake, Stark. Look at where she's looking to 'pick up her glasses'." Clint showed him the screen, and JARVIS helpfully supplied the footage in slow motion - Darcy glancing around, actively reaching up to drop the glasses from her own face. She bent, fingers touching the lenses, but her face was directed at Bucky, mouth pursed to press a very small kiss on his cheekbone.
Tony rubbed his eyes,
"Oh, romance, great. That is exactly the opposite of what I wanted to happen. What did he say to her? If it's sexually inclined, I don't want to know. Wait, maybe I do, while he's unconscious and I can take him on."
Steve sighed, looked at his friend on the bed.
"Yeah, Bucky, what did you say to the dame?" he pitched lowly, putting his elbows up on the mattress, raking clawed hands through his hair.
"I said," came a thick, sleepy growl. "She's gonna be the first thing I want to touch." One bright eye popped open, followed by a lot of squinting.
"Buck?" Steve shot to his feet, hands braced on the bars. "How are you feeling?"
"Fuckin' tired. The fuck'd Banner put in that an'sthetic?" his drawl was incredibly pronounced, head lolling to the side, seeing Darcy in the bed. "S'fuckin' bad dream. 'M I dreamin'? What happened? She alright?"
"You're not dreaming," Steve said quickly. "We don't know what happened, only that Darcy collapsed after your procedure was done."
"She's -" that took a long second, for Bucky, to sink into his brain. His other eye opened. "Not alright?"
"We don't know." Tony offered.
Bucky sat up, putting his human hand to his head.
"Woah, fuck, now that's a hangover." he scowled, clutching his skull, and maneuvered out of the blankets by kicking at them like a stubborn child. His metal arm continued to hang loosely at his side. "Jesus H, Steve, you tuck me in hospital corners or somethin'?"
"I didn't do it." Steve retorted. "And you're in a medical bay, so what else were you expecting?"
"Not a fuckin' hangover, that's for damn sure." he tossed his legs over the side, growling as he overestimated how heavy the arm would be and tipped to his more human side, stumbling. Steve grabbed his shirt, but Tony put his shoulder under his arm to support him, hand braced on his chest. "Hell, that's lighter than air."
"You do realize you were carrying around like two hundred and fifty pounds of outdated tech in one limb?" Tony snorted. "Like that wasn't getting fixed. Do you know how much damage it was doing to your muscular structure?"
"Do you?" Bucky shot back.
"I have a moderately vague idea." he said, propping him up against Steve. "I read the reports. Your serum will repair it in like a week."
"Huh." Bucky looked at the loosely lolling arm, one brow up. "Thanks."
"Don't thank me yet." Tony said. "It's not working."
"Can you feel anything?" Steve asked, with apprehension. "Touch something, maybe?"
Bucky's eyes flicked to Darcy.
Clint straightened in his chair.
"Something else." he said, resting face terrifyingly blank.
"Go on, then." he looked at Steve, one brow up. "Hold my hand."
Steve gingerly did as he was asked, but nothing registered on Bucky's face - he had to check with his eyes that Steve was touching him at all. He saw his own metal thumb twitch a little, but not of his own volition.
"Can't squeeze?" Tony prodded. "Feel anything? What about this, can you feel this?" he tapped the metal shoulder with the stylus to the tablet, making a dull echoing noise.
"No." he said slowly, and carefully walked to Darcy's bedside, pulling up a seat, sinking into it gratefully. He picked up the metal wrist and inspected it, then dropped it onto the bed, staring at the twitchy limb. "I don't feel anything."
Darcy knew she was dreaming, for once.
There was a faint glow in a circular pattern - Tony, she knew it was Tony. He kept shifting from his weight, the ball of light located in his chest swaying from side to side. She could hear a beeping sound - vital signs, her brain supplied, you're listening to your own vital signs - and feel the buzz in someone's pocket as a text came through from 'Tasha':
Is Barnes still there?
The recipient hit one letter and sent a message back.
Y
Darcy felt her sight stretch, travel along through keys in his phone until she opened his Facebook, mostly empty but for a Farmville account (impeccably maintained and organized) and a series of selfies saved from where she sent it to him earlier that year.
In the minor collection, their faces were touching, smooshed up against each other. He'd tried to be somber and not have expression in the beginning, but at the time she'd been making noises to match whatever face she'd pulled. The last few tipped him too hard into hysteria and the mask he wore visibly splintered, making him grin goofily at the camera until he laughed. The last photo was of them laughing, eyes screwed shut, all teeth on display.
She left that alone, floating for a while in her strange head space. She felt the crack and fizz of something potentially magnificent next to her, a long stretch of wires and screens she was overly familiar with, but there was a disconnect, somewhere, something unplugged.
Another text interrupted exploring that, for too long.
Tasha:
How are you?
The recipient sent back a monkey face holding both hands over it's eyes.
Tasha:
Use your words, Barton.
The recipient sent back a monkey holding both hands over it's mouth.
Tasha:
Fine, fuck you.
Then:
I'll have copious amounts of alcohol in my apartment when you want it.
And finally:
Don't do anything stupider than usual.
He sent back a picture of a monkey with hands over it's ears.
She replied with a string of swearing in Russian, followed by:
You're a little shit I hate you and I don't know why we're friends.
He sent her back a smiling turd.
She didn't reply.
Darcy smiled, because she had known that Natasha was some kind of hilarious dead-panned humorist, but the woman had been avoiding Darcy as she spent most of her time with either Loki or with Bucky... Natasha did not like either of those men, and wouldn't put up with them just to make friends with Darcy.
She felt something sort of... slide, in her brain, and became aware of Katy Perry's ET, which she'd associated with Jane. It came as little surprise to her that there were soon soft, tiny hands on her face, and wrist, but she couldn't reboot enough to say anything about it.
She couldn't hear them speaking, anyway, just feel things, specific things, around them, floating in a void.
The screen hovering just below Tony's arc reactor glow caught her attention, and she watched.
In it, she was hovering outside the room, staring in, watching the bad arm be removed and loaded onto a tray. She knew Tony would be dissecting it later, but that didn't stop her from becoming slightly obsessed with it. In her own face, she could see, she went from intense concern over Bucky to wide eyed staring, never once removing her eyes from the thing. She remembered thinking - how does it work? Where is the power source? How much damage has it done to Bucky? They're not going to be able to see it. I'll just take a quick look, what harm can it do me?
The cameras alternated as she followed, leaving surgeons and Bucky and Tony in the room, following the guys taking the limb away to Tony's lab. The speed that she was walking grew steadily more impatient, causing her to jog to catch up, hands automatically bracing her chest.
Somehow, it didn't matter to her that Bucky was laid out cold on a table with a gaping hole where his arm used to be, only that the appendage absolutely needed her attention, right now.
She walked in without having to ask JARVIS, hiding behind a desk as the boys offloaded the heavy metal bit onto a desk. ALF rolled over to her, chattering not in human words but in noises that she seemed to understand, nodding and going to the arm.
"Yeah, baby," she said, and sounded so, so far away. "That's some bad, bad tech, in there."
She lifted it carefully, and something sludgy plopped out onto the desk, rotten black in color. She screwed up her nose, stepping away from the splatter, tipping the cavity up to pour the rest of the thick, pulpy muck out, making ALF roll several meters away, propped way up onto his highest setting, looking from a distance.
"Bad tech," she said again. "Oh, god, it was on him for so long - corrupted everything - I don't even know what that is..."
She felt the urgency in the hands trying to shake her awake. Someone was patting her calf. But she didn't reboot, kept watching the video that laid forgotten at the end of her bed.
"It's bad," she said to ALF. "So bad. Poor Bucky. This is - not good, this is bad. Bad tech, bad tech. And Bucky... And Bucky-...Bucky..."
ALF whistled something at her, enquiringly.
"No, no, it's not the same." she said, peering into it. "But that's - my arm - isn't compatible with his system. It's not the same. I'll fix it. It'll - hang on, let me process, for a second - "
A cold something nudged against the back of her hand, and she jolted awake, blinking rapidly.
There was noise all around - too much noise - but from the one place she expected it to be. She realized Jane was there, realized Thor and Clint, Tony, Steve and Pepper, were all there for her, but she put her eyes down to Bucky's metal hand, cold and dead, and put her fingertips over it.
He flinched only fractionally at the flash of energy that lit up her eyes, his own going big on her face.
Tentatively, his thumb swiped over her hand, and most of the noise in the room came to a sudden halt.
"Hey." Tony said. "That wasn't something you could just do."
Darcy smiled on Bucky, his overly expressive face devastating her heart with adoration, with the weight of his hope. He stroked over her hand again, then lifted shiny fingers to her face, touching her cheek like a whisper, his lips popping open when the sensations registered in his brain, entire face going soft.
"How do you feel?" she asked him, quietly.
"I can feel." he replied, a low, hoarse noise. "Darcy, I can feel you."
"And how do I feel?" she wiggled her brows at him.
He smiled. It was not naughty, or rakish, or anything even remotely sexual - she had the idea that he was on the precipice of crying, his eyes had gone so suddenly blue, mouth pulling tightly at the corners.
"You feel -" he swallowed. "-Electric."
"Great, right. The tech is working, huzzah. Maybe his nervous system just healed into the wiring, or something." Tony suggested, clapping his hands.
"Yeah." Bruce looked about as convinced at that idea as of pigs sprouting wings and flying.
"Darcy," Clint patted her other arm. She glanced at him briefly, then back to Bucky, who was stroking her hair, looking delighted. "What happened, huh? You were out for nearly four hours."
"I don't know." she said, softly, watching Bucky's face as he explored, going from her hair to her ear, his fingers clinking against her earring. He beamed, following the line of her jaw around to her chin. "I don't care. I feel great now. Let's go touch couches and stuff."
"Cupcake," Clint said, a little petulantly. "You dropped into a frickin' coma for no apparent reason, a few hours ago. We're waiting on your CAT scans, maybe you should just, not wonder around?"
"I'll be in the Tower." she mused.
"Yeah." Bucky said, cupping her face in his silver hand. "She'll be with me."
"Don't even think about it." Steve said, cutting off both Tony and Clint as they opened mouths to protest. "Darcy is a smart girl and she said she feels fine. There's nothing you can do to hurry along the results by getting her to stay here, so don't. Don't." he pointed at Clint, who lifted his eyebrows at him.
"What? I wasn't going to do anything."
"If I even get the idea you're in those vents, Barton, so help me." he was Captain America firm, serious brow pulled down. "That goes for you too, Stark. No hovering."
"I do not hover." he said, sniffing self righteously. "I hijack."
"Uh huh." Steve said, flat. "None of that, either. Am I understood, gentlemen?"
Jane covered a smile, elbowing Thor in the side.
"Yes." he said, trying (and failing) to hide his own grin. "I too, grow tired of this hovering and hijacking nonsense. Leave the courting process alone, or you deal with me and Steven both."
"Courting?" Tony repeated.
"There's no courting." Darcy said, putting her arm around Bucky's shoulders to sit. He eased her up, his new hand touching her bicep, fingers barely squeezing. He wet his lips at the registered softness, the warmth and pressure, lingering near her for a long second more than strictly appropriate. It didn't matter, however, because Darcy kept her arm over his shoulders to anchor him to her side, her other hand touching his forearm. "We're definitely not courting. Courting implies we're keen on a long-term romantic relationship, but because you guys are always interfering, we've just been sleeping together, so suck it."
Thor blocked Clint from getting up, setting a huge hand on his shoulder. Pepper arched a brow at Tony, who would never admit to blushing, and would destroy any evidence to the contrary.
"That is your fault, actually." she said, smoothly.
"Action and reaction," Jane prodded, protected by her huge alien boyfriend. "You're both familiar with the theory."
Steve got the door as Bucky scooped Darcy up into his arms, the metal one receiving so many sensations his entire left side was awash with goosebumps. She twirled a finger in his hair, feeling like a gooey intern puddle, all happy and chill.
"It's good to see you." she mentioned, as they left the room.
"S'good to see you too, pretty girl."
"I meant like, it's good to see you happy. I- ... I like your stubble." she scratched her nails lightly on his chin - he smelled so good she rubbed her face against his soft shirt, shutting her eyes when he tilted his head to give her room to rest her temple. It didn't stop her from being aware of his cheeky grin, even without seeing it.
"Thought you did. Been growin' it out."
"It's really, really nice. Your face is nice." she lifted her head to look at him. "Hey, I like you a lot."
"I like you a lot too. Wanna tell me why you put me on Barton's shit list?" he arched a brow, watching her studying his face. "And Stark's, too?"
She shrugged.
"I like to throw a proverbial spanner in the metaphorical works sometimes. It's not something I can control."
He barked a short laugh, eyes twinkling.
"You're trouble." he mused.
"You're both trouble." Steve, striding far ahead of them, told the wall.
"Like you're not?" she shot at the back of his head. "You can't tell me Bucky started all the fist fights in back alleys back in the day, buster, I'm so onto you."
Bucky snickered, looking equal parts debauched and delicious. Darcy reached up and dragged gentle fingers over his scalp, smiling slowly at the very amused expression on his face.
"So." Steve said, not bothering to turn around. "I'll be in my room. You two have fun touching things. Keep the noise down."
Neither Darcy, nor Bucky, made him a promise of any sort.
